New projects

I do my best to look on the bright side, especially when it comes to the British weather. So the recent monsoon season has been an excellent excuse to get on with some much-ignored projects.

After acquiring a bunch of white zips, I decided to make use of them. While I was learning to sew, I picked up on a feeling of fear towards zips within the sewing community. But I love a challenge and, despite not owning a zipper foot - an add-on for the machine which apparently makes sewing on zips a lot easier - I picked out two projects for the day: a tote bag and a matching purse.

Using tutorials from Bored and Crafty I made these beauties:

Inspired, I made these too:

This is 15 inches wide, FYI

5 inches wide

I also decided to have a go at a different phone case project. As you'll see in my previous posts, I have made several quilted phone holders. The quilt effect looks great, but it's incredibly time-consuming and kind of hides the fabric!

I found this great tutorial, and got to work.

It's not perfect - I'm terrible at stitching in a straight line. (I think I'm better off sticking to projects that involve hidden seams!)

The flap is also too short, so if I wanted to add a button I would have to put an elastic loop on the flap, instead of a button hole. But it's a start, and I'm definitely going to make some more.

Lastly, I've been attempting to bake madeleines. I recently bought the Little Paris Kitchen cookbook, and couldn't wait to make Rachel Khoo's raspberry and lemon curd madeleines. I bought a madeleine tin, and followed the instructions to the letter. Unfortunately - as is often the case when I follow recipes - they came out wrong. I've taken a  picture, but I've cleverly left them out-of-focus as they're too shocking to properly show. I think I either used too much butter in the mix, or when greasing the pan. They didn't taste terrible, but it was more like eating fried dough. Nevermind, I'll try again. To compensate, I whipped up a few cupcakes and used the remaining raspberries for decoration. Delicious! There's just something absolutely mouth-watering about red raspberries and a bit of white icing.